Los Alamos Church of Christ
Ten
Reasons Why I believe in Jesus
Reason #6: Sharing Jesus in
Compassion
Last week we explored the explosive growth of early Christianity. Within 100 years Christianity went from zero to the ends of the earth. We noted that one of the reasons for this spread was their compassion. The early Christians changed what religion was all about in their world. Until Christianity burst upon the scene, pagan religion was about manipulating the gods to do its will. It was about offering animal sacrifices to appease the gods and gain their favors. It was about secret occult practices to put curses on your enemies. The pagan religions instead of valuing people degraded them. Paul describes this in Romans. Listen to his conclusion.
Romans 1:28-32 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Into that kind of pagan world, came a message of hope; a call for all people to be valued; a compassion for the sick; a helping of the hurting; an inclusion of the marginalized; a love of others over one's self. Early Christianity revolutionized what religion meant.
Even the Judaism of the 1st century, which had important elements of caring for the widows and the like, had become hypocritical and cold. Paul also gives us a glimpse into Judaism of his day.
Romans 2:21-24 You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
Into that setting of pagan ruthlessness and Jewish hypocrisy, the force of Christian compassion introduced this new element of a caring community; a loving fellowship and took the Roman world by storm.
"It was the Christian spirit of mutual love and communal charity that astonished and impressed the pagans and the Romans. The emperor Julian, seeking to revive paganism in the fourth century, professed admiration for the way in which Christians looked after their poor, their widows and orphans, and their sick and dying. However paradoxical it seems, people who believed most strongly in the next world did the most to improve the situation of people living in this one." - Dinesh D'Souza -
Here is the question of the morning and Reason #6 of Why I Believe in Jesus. Where did that compassion come from? Why did Christianity suddenly start caring about people? How did Christianity redefined religion? Christianity brought compassion to religion. Where did that come from? It is an odd question for us because we equate religious with kindness. But it was not that way in the first century Roman world.
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The obvious and simple answer is… Jesus. But I want to dig a little deeper. I want to come back to this simple answer but I want to take a circuitous route. Be patient with me for a few minutes we are coming back to answer where did compassion come from but we need to start in an odd place; the Tabernacle built by Moses. Remember God told Moses to build him a Tabernacle while they were in the wilderness. God gave him all the instructions and the people donated their stuff and the build this wonderful tent we call the Tabernacle. Our elementary kids build some this last couple of months. (Demonstrate one) When the Tabernacle in the wilderness was finished listen to what happened.
Exodus 40:34-35 Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
Wow, that most have been spectacular. Now, skip ahead 500 years, give or take, to King Solomon, the son of David. He replaced this tabernacle with a similar temple. It wasn't a tent but a magnificent building. When it was dedicated note again what happened.
2 Chronicles 7:1-3 When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, "He is good; his love endures forever."
God did it again; fire and smoke! These two glorious events remained fixed in the minds of Jewish people. In 587 AD Solomon's Temple was destroyed and the people hauled off into captivity. When the people returned to the Promised Land they rebuild the temple. Note what happened.
Ezra 6:15-16 The temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. Then the people of Israel-- the priests, the Levites and the rest of the exiles-- celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy.
What's missing? No smoke; no fire; no glorious presence of YHWH filling the temple. From those, days all the way until the days of Jesus, the people were still waiting for this glorious return of God to Zion.
Remember I said several weeks ago that they expected the Messiah to do three things; drive out the Romans, restore the Temple, and bring peace and justice to the world. Number two on the list was the Messiah bringing this glory back to the Temple. They wanted what happened in the wilderness and what happened to Solomon to happen again. They just knew that when their Messiah came the fire and smoke and presence of God would fill the restored Temple. For over 40 years Herod the Great had been building another great Temple. I think they expected the Messiah to dedicate that spectacular building. This was part of the hope of what the true messiah would do; restore the presence of God in the heart of the Temple!
Now listen to what Jesus did and said in John 2.
John 2:13-21 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this (Herod the Great's temple) temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
According to John's Gospel, from the very beginning of Jesus' ministry he knew that he was the Temple. He knew, in his resurrection, he would create this temple of God. He was to be the presence of God in the Temple. He was to be the cloud and the fire of God's presence in the Temple.
Wow! Isn't that an amazing concept? Jesus was to fulfill Messianic expectation Number Two: by being the presence of God, incarnate in his Temple. "Well, Tim, That is cool but I thought the question was where did compassion come from in the early church?' I told you it was circuitous. We are getting there.
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Now, with Jesus aware of his replacing of the stone-upon-stone Temple with the Temple of his body in the resurrection, let's place the rest of his ministry inside that concept.
-His healings: Who did he heal? Most, if not all, of his healings can be seen as the restoration of the marginalized back to the people of God. The lepers were restored to being clean. The blind, the lame, the bleeding woman were all restored to purity. People were brought back into God. The effect of these cures was not simply physical healing, but bringing these people back into fellowship; Ah ha, Jesus was making people clean.
-One of the accusations made against Jesus was, "He eats with sinners." Why did Jesus eat with sinners? He was offering fellowship to the marginalized. He was bringing outcast people back to fellowship. Ah ha, Jesus cleaning people.
-In his exorcisms Jesus is doing battle with Satan to usher the kingdom of God into the world by saving people from the clutches of Satan!
- On several occasion Jesus forgave sins. That is what happens in a Temple.
-His teachings were as one having the authority of the Torah. What were those teachings? Love your enemy; do good to those who persecute you; do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In Jesus' teachings, he is preparing people for his temple!
Jesus' ministry was preparing for the creation of the new temple of God; the Temple not made with hands. Jesus was preparing people to be the stones in his glory filled temple. He was fulfilling the prophets. He was already creating the Temple and filling it with his presence.
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At the end of his ministry he comes face-to-face with Herod's stone temple. Watch what happens.
Matthew
21:7-11
They brought the
donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks
on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the
road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the
Lord!" "Hosanna in the highest!"
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who
is this?" The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in
Galilee."
The people are proclaiming him Messiah and King and the fulfillment of prophecy and they are expecting him to go restore the Temple.
Matthew
21:12-13
Jesus entered the
temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned
the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them,
"'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of
robbers.'"
Jesus symbolically cleans the Temple by driving out the impurity of it, but listen to the next amazing verse.
Matthew
21:14 The blind
and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.
What? Where is the smoke and fire? Why mention that? Why the lame and blind? In the middle of the action of cleansing the Temple, he shows what the Temple is really to be… clean people!
Matthew
21:15-16
But when the chief
priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the
children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were
indignant. "Do you hear what these
children are saying?" they asked him. "Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never
read, "'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?"
Jesus saying yes the children are right I am the one to cleanse the Temple but I'm doing it by restoring the people to God!
Matthew 26:59-64 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward and declared, "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.'" Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
In his resurrection Jesus is vindicated and becomes the cloud of heaven sitting beside the Almighty One in the presence of the Temple! Jesus is the presence of God in the Temple and it was proved in the resurrection!
Wasn't that cool? Preacher cool? "Hey, but what about the early church? Where did they get their compassion?"
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Here is the bottom line. The early Christians got it. They got that Jesus was making a new kind of Temple!
1
Corinthians 3:16-17 Don't you know that you yourselves
are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's
temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that
temple.
Romans 8:9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
1 Peter 2:1-5 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone-- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Do you see where I am going now? Jesus, throughout his entire ministry, taught and demonstrated the value of people, because they were to be the new temple. The early church understanding and adopting Jesus' model, valued people. They saw every person, as a potential stone in this temple. The incarnation of Jesus was God living in his people. Jesus replaced the stone Temple as the place of God's presence with himself and continues to live in his Temple; which is all made up of valuable people!
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Where did compassion come from in the early church? Jesus came to purify people to become his Temple. People, who are precious to him, were precious to the early church! Compassion came from Jesus who is the smoke and fire!
Here is the bottom line reason #6. As we are compassionate, to the people around us, we continue the mission of Jesus and feel his living presence. When I am compassionate; when I help, when I am kind to the marginalized, when I help the needy, when I share Jesus, I know Jesus! I, then, know he is who he claimed to be as I continue to build his glory filled temple.
